In this article, Microsoft is speculated to lose nearly $75 per xbox unit sold. However, they intend to implement more in-game advertising.

I tried to see how this could be done without selling out the game itself, like billboards. I imagine this would be more of an xbox live addition or something like that.

Here's a sample image I made for the fun of it. I got the original from gamespot.com

TumikSmacker

11-13-2005, 10:36 PM

I have nothing wrong with advertising in a game, if its done right. I HATE how DVDs have previews when you first put the disc in. Ads shouldn't distract from the story whatsoever. For instance if I'm on some distant world I dont want to see an ad for Pepsi. I like how you've done it, its in the menu setup screen.

Blizzard did it perfect with StarCraft. When you're surfing for a server to play on they have a few ads on the top. The ads are mostly for Blizzard but they could be for other things.

If it keeps the console companies alive (MS, Sony and Nintendo) then by all means DO IT. But dont let it get out of hand.

DevilHacker

11-14-2005, 01:08 AM

Someone correct me if I am wrong…
But Microsoft is not going to be placing ads like the image above. When they said they were going to but in game ads, they mean IN GAME ads. And example they used were the billboards that are placed in online matches in PGR3, and companies like McDonalds could buy ad space for the big racing tournament, ect…

PhantomDesign

11-14-2005, 01:19 AM

IF they implement ads, my opinion is that they should make XboX life free. Most people don't want to pay to be advertised to. I was thoroughly annoyed in NFS Underground and the stupid repetitive billboards.

rblitz7

11-14-2005, 02:27 AM

Well that ad you made is pretty distracting but maby something less obtrusive would be ok.:)

heavyness

11-14-2005, 07:40 AM

i don't mind if PGR3 has different billboards next to the streets every time i play [makes it more realistic actually]. i don't care if it's Speed Stick, Outback Steakhouse, of ads for a new game, as long....

1] it doesn't slow me down when playing online [don't take my bandwidth away when i need to play]. during race recaps and what not, fine.

2] do not put ads in games that don't need them. games like PGR, GTA, Tekken and other games that happen in "modern time" is fine.

like it or not, ads will help keep prices down. Mt Dew bought the first round of expansion maps for Halo 2 [they were free for all]. if its less money out of my pocket, sign me up.

jcorpe

11-14-2005, 09:37 PM

IF they implement ads, my opinion is that they should make XboX life free. Most people don't want to pay to be advertised to. I was thoroughly annoyed in NFS Underground and the stupid repetitive billboards.

Yeah, that's what I thought about cable television too. Back when I was a kid, and didn't have cable, I think the people that had cable didn't need to put up with commercials. Now you pay for cable and you pay to watch the commercials with it.

Koogle

11-14-2005, 11:47 PM

on that DVD thing.. i actually like dvd movies that have trailers for films put on the disc.. its not bad if you can just skip them.. or if an option is avalaible to watch any trailers should you want to.

And on games having ads that update in the game.. well I think its one of those game developers have to really think about implementing properly.. If maps changed in small ways like different billboards and things like that it could add more playability to a game, but give the player options to disable ad content. I wouldn't want to have to wait to play a level quickly and find i'm waiting longer just for adverts to download.. they should be pre-loaded ahead of time

Hazdaz

11-15-2005, 01:14 AM

Like what was mentioned above concerning Cable TV... all these ads eventually seep in and totaly ruin anything and everythign tney touch. And you just know that satellite radio is the next thing that will eventually have ads even though it is a pay service.

Like the ads I don't think would be soo bad in a driving game that has billboards... it is when there is NO need for that that drives me nuts. But the problem is, that once you let them in for billboards in a driving game, next year, or the year after that, you are bound to see ads in the dumbest locations. That extra revenue is addictive to the game developers... even if it cheapens their work. Wasn't one of those ghetto fighting games (NYC something) that even had "sponsored" clothes and jewlery?!? I mean come on! That is ridiculious.

Nothing I hate more than over-commercialization. That will even ruin gaming for me when it eventually gets real bad.

animateddave

11-15-2005, 01:24 AM

Well it was going to happen sooner or later so who cares? Give my character a pepsi or stick a viagra ad on the side of a building I'm running by while playing I don't really care as long as its not in the way and doesn't adversely affect the game. Fact is you can watch any tv show or movie and you'll probably see someone holding a pepsi can at one point or another. If they do it right it will become part of the game and you won't notice it.

*This post brought to you by Pepsi.

Grim Beefer

11-15-2005, 02:38 AM

Fact is you can watch any tv show or movie and you'll probably see someone holding a pepsi can at one point or another. If they do it right it will become part of the game and you won't notice it.

I think this is closer to the point than anything said before, despite the apathetic reaction. The problem to me with in game advertising and product placement is the effect it's going to have on our children. How many of you know about "Decision Earth" (http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/beder/story.htm), the Proctor and Gamble sponsored edudcational material that has infiltrated the American school system? Their educational material claimed, among other things, that clear-cutting "opened up the forest floor to sunshine", and that plastic diapers were no worse for the enviroment than cloth ones. I'm also young enough to remember "Channel One" (http://www.wweek.com/html/cover040198.html), the forced news reel with a "healthy" dose of advertising between fluffy news bites. It has become common practice across the country for Corporations to bail out school-systems as states come up short on funds for essential items. Thus you have "captive audiences"; children forced by law to be bombarded with corporate advertising in a corporate sponsered high school. Similarly, Corporations know that children make up a substantial portion of video game players, and see this as a great opportunity to imperialistically branch out into another information medium. Not only is it completely unethical to target developing children like this, as companies become more and more reliant on the paid advertising, they become more subservient to these tyrannical clients, a fact which will effect older gamers more for sure. Newspapaers ecspecially are terrified of running anything that will offend advertisers, and this could easily extend itself into video games as the medium matures to suit an aging audience of Atari veterans. I understand that many game publishers are themselves giant Corporations, thus making this a pretty simple buisiness decision, but I see no reason to believe that this is anything but harmful to the average consumer.

MK2

11-15-2005, 03:30 AM

Well, learn to program and hack that stuff and then put your own cool hacking-crew logo into the games!

I play games because i dont wanna have real-advertisments or anything that exists in the here and now... SplinterCell3 had some stupid advertisments in it. The only thing that happened was: I will never buy Airwicks-Bubblegums and no more SplinterCell Games.

I dont need games, they need me (my money).

Its the same with TV. I dont pay for the standart-ad-full-stuff, but i pay for a PayTV without a problem.

animateddave

11-15-2005, 03:39 AM

Channel One

Ahhh fond memories of channel one. I remember they had this blond.... well nevermind. :)

but I see no reason to believe that this is anything but harmful to the average consumer.

I don't really think its harmful, well atleast not anymore than any other delivery system for ads. I'm not really all that worried about young kids being bombarded by these ads in their games because I think at a younger age nothing beats peer pressure. Will the we benefit at all? Well that remains to be seen but I wouldn't bet much on it.

DoubleSupercool

11-15-2005, 04:58 AM

ON a slightly different tack, just how are games companies going to fund the next-gen level games without things like advertising deals? Gamers are going to want more polys, more particles, more lighting, more physics, more animation but yet they still only want to pay the same as current gen games. Given the amount of piracy that goes on, I can't blame developers or manufacturers from trying to recoup costs. You don't get something for nothing.

PhantomDesign

11-15-2005, 08:32 AM

Yeah, that's what I thought about cable television too. Back when I was a kid, and didn't have cable, I think the people that had cable didn't need to put up with commercials. Now you pay for cable and you pay to watch the commercials with it.
True - true enough. Maybe this will help the PC games industry? That would make me happy, because a lot of fishy news has been floating around on the new consoles & I’d rather see more games on an “open market” (not to mention that I prefer PCs).

MK2

11-15-2005, 11:56 AM

@ double supercoolThe money first goes to merchants and publishers and then a tiny rest to developers.
With ads the devs sure dont see more money, but the "risk" for publishers gets smaller.

Next gen is overhyped. You dont need a teamsize*2 or something.

And to priated games... the last numbers and facts ive seen shows that the gamesindustry is growing fine.
Can it be you mix that with the musicindustry? Wait... thats growing fine to... but more money goes to small labels, only the big ones whining.
Only Movies seem to have problems, but since marketing is involved i think thats a lie too.

Hazdaz

11-15-2005, 12:56 PM

I think this is closer to the point than anything said before, despite the apathetic reaction. The problem to me with in game advertising and product placement is the effect it's going to have on our children. How many of you know about "Decision Earth" (http://www.abc.net.au/science/slab/beder/story.htm), the Proctor and Gamble sponsored edudcational material that has infiltrated the American school system? Their educational material claimed, among other things, that clear-cutting "opened up the forest floor to sunshine", and that plastic diapers were no worse for the enviroment than cloth ones. I'm also young enough to remember "Channel One" (http://www.wweek.com/html/cover040198.html), the forced news reel with a "healthy" dose of advertising between fluffy news bites. It has become common practice across the country for Corporations to bail out school-systems as states come up short on funds for essential items. Thus you have "captive audiences"; children forced by law to be bombarded with corporate advertising in a corporate sponsered high school. Similarly, Corporations know that children make up a substantial portion of video game players, and see this as a great opportunity to imperialistically branch out into another information medium. Not only is it completely unethical to target developing children like this, as companies become more and more reliant on the paid advertising, they become more subservient to these tyrannical clients, a fact which will effect older gamers more for sure. Newspapaers ecspecially are terrified of running anything that will offend advertisers, and this could easily extend itself into video games as the medium matures to suit an aging audience of Atari veterans. I understand that many game publishers are themselves giant Corporations, thus making this a pretty simple buisiness decision, but I see no reason to believe that this is anything but harmful to the average consumer.

I totaly agree with you... in-game advertising is a bad bad thing.... espesiallly to impressionable youth. What I find most disturbing is that there are some people that don't think people are that affected by this. There is only one way that some of the totaly crap consumer items on sale today are selling as well as they are - advertising. It is an extremely powerful tool that on the surface looks like no big deal. The whole point of these in-game/embedded ads is that you are not aware of just how much impact they do to someone until after... it is all subconscience.

Our society is already disturbingly shallow and materialistic... the last thing we need is even more of that crap thrown at us.

gabe28

11-15-2005, 11:43 PM

Although I completely agree with the last two posts.... I also hate to admit that in some ways I don't mind in game advertising. Seeing real products makes the world seem more real to me. Whenever I see a show, movie or game without ANY recognizable products it just seems like a fantasy world. But I think that's where the advertising should end. The products should be allowed to be no more than props.

tozz

11-16-2005, 10:26 AM

Give it a couple of years and the loading screen will be a can of coke rotating with a female voice moaning "driiiiiink me"... and the loading time will be way longer than what's needed to load the game files 10 times over.
Before the bossfight in Tekken10 you'll get a "we'll be right back, after this insanely long commercial break", and then the flood of crap food, crap drinks and crap products are shown.

Enjoy gaming while it lasts, it'll all be over soon.:twisted:

DoubleSupercool

11-16-2005, 11:30 AM

@ double supercoolThe money first goes to merchants and publishers and then a tiny rest to developers.
With ads the devs sure dont see more money, but the "risk" for publishers gets smaller.

Next gen is overhyped. You dont need a teamsize*2 or something.

And to priated games... the last numbers and facts ive seen shows that the gamesindustry is growing fine.
Can it be you mix that with the musicindustry? Wait... thats growing fine to... but more money goes to small labels, only the big ones whining.
Only Movies seem to have problems, but since marketing is involved i think thats a lie too.

I didn't necessarily say that developers would get the money directly, but the money will fund their games. As for "next gen is overhyped", good luck with that. I am sure Joe Average will enjoy playing last gen games on their next-gen systems. The fact is that people will expect more and more = $$$. Unfortunately, the days of the lone coder are long gone, especially on console.

JosephGoss

11-16-2005, 12:34 PM

Give it a couple of years and the loading screen will be a can of coke rotating with a female voice moaning "driiiiiink me"... and the loading time will be way longer than what's needed to load the game files 10 times over.
Before the bossfight in Tekken10 you'll get a "we'll be right back, after this insanely long commercial break", and then the flood of crap food, crap drinks and crap products are shown.

Enjoy gaming while it lasts, it'll all be over soon.:twisted:

totally agree with you here

adverts in games may start of calmly, but in a few years everything will be ruined

Hazdaz

11-16-2005, 02:09 PM

Give it a couple of years and the loading screen will be a can of coke rotating with a female voice moaning "driiiiiink me"... and the loading time will be way longer than what's needed to load the game files 10 times over.
Before the bossfight in Tekken10 you'll get a "we'll be right back, after this insanely long commercial break", and then the flood of crap food, crap drinks and crap products are shown.

Enjoy gaming while it lasts, it'll all be over soon.:twisted:
[starts writing those ideas down so I can propose them to some big ad agency... espesially like the 'commercial' right before the bossfight]

heavyness

11-16-2005, 06:21 PM

"This Dragon Upper Cut brought to you by Pepsi. Pepsi, the choice of the Next Street Fighters!"

this will never happen. games are and becoming more of an art form. do you really see adds in Zelda and Shadow of the Colossus? games like PGR and Burnout would not be effected if the ads where on billboards [where, in the real world, ads are located].

do you really think it bad to see an ad for Nike shoes during half time of NBA Live'08 scroll at the bottom of the screen while there is a recap of the first half?

will some companies over use this? sure. just like anything "new." but once the dust settles, i think its a great way smart studios can distribute new content for free.

Hazdaz

11-16-2005, 06:38 PM

this will never happen. games are and becoming more of an art form.
movies are way more of an 'art form' and there is endless product placement in those.

do you really think it bad to see an ad for Nike shoes during half time of NBA Live'08 scroll at the bottom of the screen while there is a recap of the first half?
Yes, I do think it is bad - our society is sickenly materialistic, the last thing we need are more teenagers running around in hideous $200 sneekers just cuz they are "cool" and have no other redeeming value.

i think its a great way smart studios can distribute new content for free.
Don't make me laugh... this isn't goign to subsidize the price of games... it isjust going to open a new revenue source for them that adds nothing to a game. Are movie tickets free or atleast cheaper than what they were 5 years ago? Hell no! Yet there are now commercials for something that you paid good money to watch and then there are all the ads within the movie that cheapen the experience.

Advertising - espesially in-game or product placement type of advertising - is extremely powerful. Nothing like corrupting the minds of youth just so you can sell a few more over-priced, poor quality products. :rolleyes:

heavyness

11-16-2005, 09:21 PM

will some companies over use this? sure. just like anything "new." but once the dust settles, i think its a great way smart studios can distribute new content for free.

this is the only part of my post you didn't quote.

will this be abused. yes! just like lens flares in photoshop.

but if i'm making a police game that takes place in current times, and pepsi says "we will pay you $2,000,000 if you make all the soda machines in your police game Pepsi machines" i'm switching the "Generic Cola" to Pepsi. with 2 million, i could easily release some expansion maps for my game for free to the users.

so when your playing my game, every now and then, you see a pepsi machine when your chasing down a criminal on the streets of City X.... i don't see the harm there. cause if i was a in real life, chasing down a criminal, i might really see a pepsi machine.

sorry, i'm an optimistic person, i could see this has a good thing IF used properly. but like i stated before [and before that] it will be abused by some studios. simply enough, don't buy there games. if they promote pepsi, drink coke.

MK2

11-16-2005, 10:03 PM

The problem would be: You (as a dev) have no choice. Its much more like your publisher tells you that you have to change the soda machines, because they made a contract with pepsi. And you wont see any money for that. For most devs it will be a eat-it-or-die situation!

And belive me there will be modern advertising in EVERY game. No matter which setting it is. Ive allready seen that. An daily-food ad in a Fantasy-RPG. btw... it wasnt called advertisment, i think it was called cooperation, sponsoring or something like that.

If they put all the sponsors and advertisment and stuff in the credits, that would be fine for me.
But you will see the ads all over the place! In the Intros, in Game, Outros where ever they can think of. And iam sure it wont take long until the first games stops in the middle to present you 5 Mins of ads. Or games with very long loading times to present you even more crap.

Neil

11-16-2005, 10:38 PM

Hows this different than games that do it now. Like BF2 has hosting ads in the corner during load up. Need for SPeed put ads everywhere, including a blinking Cingular icon to remind you of when your "virtual" phone is ringing.
I guess the difference would be MS makes the money instead of the publisher?

Grim Beefer

11-30-2005, 11:01 PM

I think this issue is being divided upon two crucial paradigms. On the one hand is Perspective A, "when your playing my game, every now and then, you see a pepsi machine when your chasing down a criminal on the streets of City X.... i don't see the harm there. cause if i was a in real life, chasing down a criminal, i might really see a pepsi machine". Perspective B says that "our society is sickenly materialistic, the last thing we need are more teenagers running around in hideous $200 sneekers just cuz they are "cool" and have no other redeeming value".

The problem with issues like these is that people from Perspective A don't see any problem with advertising. They have accepted it an immutable part of our existence, no different really than roads, trees, dogs, the sky, etc. This viewpoint is presented as that of a realist, companies require capitol to make games, movies, whatever, and the revenue from advertising will do nothing but foster growth in these departments. Without these developments, the realist will claim, we will see the consumer cost of merchandise skyrocket to keep pace with inflating production costs. I do not refute that games are getting more expensive... but I do think that more can be said about the true "costs" of advertising, a point of contention that the realist often overlooks.

Perspective B deals with the ideological reasons that advertising is a corrupt and contemptible aspect of our modern consumer culture. Advertising is inherently built upon lies, mistrust and distortion of the facts; no company has financial incentive to tell the truth about their product. Furthermore, it is implicit in the nature of modern business that you must psychologically manipulate your audience to achieve maximum profit. Most major marketing firms hire psychologists that specialize in their target market (child psychologists for a toy company, to take an insidious example). Modern advertising got it roots in the behavioriolist school of psychology, most prominently with John B. Watson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_B._Watson). Watson is known for several famous pearls of wisdom, including "If psychology would follow the plan I suggest, the educator, the physician, the jurist, and the businessman could utilize our data in a practical way" (source (http://www.wcupa.edu/_ACADEMICS/sch_cas.psy/Career_Paths/Consumer/Career05.htm)), and "Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors" (see the named link for source). The first quote especially reveals the drives of homogenization and assimilation by corporate culture, note he openly endorses adulterating science "data" with business "practicality" (again remember the realist position). It doesn't take very much effort to comprehend the true goals of advertising, namely to manufacture a consumer population that is a paradise for those out to profit.

Even though behavioralism as a science was thoroughly discredited (primarily by the Chomskian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noam_chomsky) revolution in the cognitive sciences), the practical applications of behaviorism as a marketing ploy remain thoroughly dominant. These methods are openly expressed in any introductionary business class, in things like "sex sells", or, in radio, you "sell the sizzle not the steak" (both of these dealing with the environmental manipulation of the human senses). When you see advertising, you are seeing an effective, calculative program of human contortion whose sole purpose is to convince you to enrich someone else with your hard earned money.

The behavioralist would say that people from Perspective A have now been thoroughly conditioned to accept advertising as a natural part of their environment, even though nothing is further from the truth. Using the concepts of advertising, and the behavioralist belief in environmental manipulation, it easy to see how we have become a materially obsessed class of rabid consumers, so much that we no longer object to the out and out branding of ourselves (take a look at your body, how many corporate logos are you wearing?).

I think George Orwell said it most appropriately here, "Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket"

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